At last, we have a choice!
Feb 28 '01
The Bottom Line Buying a mouse isnt as easy as it was before, we now have a choice and can get one to suit exactly what we want.
Technology in mice had not come very far until the last year or so and suddenly there has been loads of new ideas come to the forefront, the most recent of course being the introduction of the optical mouse (the mouse without a ball). But how do you decide which one is right for you. Well you have to look at what you will be using it for.
“Let the software determine the Hardware and don’t let the hardware determine your software”
A phrase I picked up from school. Basically means that you should decide what you want to do on the computer first and then buy the appropriate hardware. So looking at the jobs that the mouse might need to do you should be able to decide which type is best for you.
Typical everyday use
If you plan on using mouse for mundane tasks and everyday icon clicking etc and nothing much more than that, then you will simply need a standard, 2 button, cheap mouse. This mouse offers nothing special and you require nothing special from it. But it will work and save you a decent amount of cash.
Games
A mouse for gaming is debated point, what is important and what isn’t in a gaming mouse. For me I use the Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer. First reason being that it has a scroll wheel and 5 buttons. While playing games such as Quake III and Unreal Tournament having lots of functions available on the mouse is a big advantage. Being able to change the weapon with out having to leave any controls is essential to me. Also I can allocate functions such as jump, crouch and display the current scores without leaving the mouse or movement controls.
A split second advantage is sometimes all you need to win the match. I put all that down in increasing the speed in which you are able to play games. The second reason I use this mouse is accuracy. With it being an optical mouse it uses a laser to scan the desktop instead on relying a mouse ball to move the rollers. Rollers can get clogged up with hairs and dust etc from the mouse mat. You may say well it’s easy to clean, and yes you would be correct but by the time you find that you need to clean your mouse, you are already dead. Using a laser this cannot happen. It was the biggest technological breakthrough in mice for ages. The Laser can scan on any surface except for glass and mirrors, which if you think about it is very understandable.
Other people I know have gone for different approaches for games playing mice. The other popular option seems to be the cordless mouse. The reason behind this of course would of course be the fact that you can’t get the mouse caught while your playing. These mice can sometimes come with plenty of useful buttons and a scroll wheel. The reason I didn’t pick one of these for my gaming mouse is really that these mice tend to use Infra red to communicate to computer, this means that you have to have you mouse facing the infra-red sensor for it to work. I know that the sensor gets a lot of area but if you should slip out of its range then its worse in terms of gaming than if you got a clogged ball on your standard mouse.
Internet Surfing
If your main interest on the computer is surfing the World Wide Web then you will certainly want a scroll mouse. Scroll mice come in a couple of varieties. First there is a standard scroll mouse with a scroll wheel to scroll up and down web pages with ease. These mice are fine for this job and are quite cheap to buy.
If you want something a little more though, you should be looking maybe again at something along the lines of the Intellimouse Explorer. Although I use this as a gaming mouse, it was first marketed as a internet mouse. Mainly because it has the scroll wheel and the default setting on the two side buttons are set to use the forward and back browser controls. Very useful for quick surfing, and also you can get ride of the tool bar in Internet Explorer and make more room for the web page. There are various types of mice from different companies most are quite a bit more expensive than the standard scroll mouse though
For small or low resolution monitors
Should you have trouble while surfing the internet because your monitor is too small to display the whole width of the web page, there are mice you can by that have two scroll wheels, one to control the vertical scrolling and one to control the horizontal scrolling. I’ve not seen too many of these around recently but they do exist.
Mice have changed in the past few years and now there is a lot of choice so it can be worth getting something that suites exactly want you want. No longer do you have to put up with the 2 buttons and sticky mouse ball.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
thepanther
|
|
Member: Stevie Orgill
Location: Burton-on-Trent, DerbyShire, UK
Reviews written: 65
Trusted by: 13 members
About Me:
Passing on my own experience from my business in Computer Hardware.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.